The rig was not active, and was not used for drilling. Although the fire that resulted from the explosion was significant, with 100 foot flames springing from the burnt wellhead in Bayou Perot at some points, the blaze was put out quickly and no pollution has been detected in the water so far (WDAM).

Although the environment seems to have survived this incident fairly unscathed, the workers that were welding on the workover rig when the explosion occurred didn’t fare so well.

Jefferson Parish emergency officials say the men’s hands and faces were badly burned in the explosion, and they were taken to a burn unit at Baton Rouge General Hospital (WDAM, KATC.com).

According to FuelFix.com, the rig is owned by a company called Grosse Tete but the company that reported the incident was Louisiana Delta Oil.

Jefferson Parish President John Young told WDAM he wants an environmental team to check out the scene to make sure there was no contamination.

“We should take all precautions as they’ve done and we should monitor it to make sure and ascertain and document that there was in fact no oil or gas leak as a result of this incident,” Young said.

While it’s fortunate that this rig was inactive and resulted in almost no contamination of the Bayou Perot, this is yet another example of the dangers of offshore drilling, both for the environment and rig workers.

Although the Grosse Tete rig explosion pales in comparison to the magnitude of what happened with BP and the Deepwater Horizon, what if we weren’t so lucky?

The drilling ban announced by President Obama yesterday only pertains to NEW drilling, and really only makes the dirty, dangerous issue of offshore drilling in U.S. waters another administration’s problem.

Once again we see another example of 'bad planning'. When they build these structures is there no plan to disassemble them when they are finished raping the seaf floor?

OH! Well seeing it's out there and we don't need it lets burn it to the ground, I mean to the water... And don't you know, fires just start by themselves lately...

Sounds suspicious to me but 'they' will get some 'expert' to convince everyone how it's this and that, that caused it... And because the media will elevate this so called 'expert' to messiah status and everyone will believe his/her words as the gospel truth...

And like other posts have highlighted, this is what we know about, what is going on out there we don't know about?

Who knows maybe 'they' will get the same Coast Guard 'expert' they used in the last disaster to convince us otherwise. Just because he's got some fancy uniform and is the head of some fancy institution automatically people believe him.

Think about sheeple, how many times lately do you hear the word expert, expert this, expert that, all the while pulling the wool over our eyes...

Again the point is that oil companies can't be trusted. How little they would have to spend maximising safety and behaving responsibly in comparison to the enormous damage and cost of failing to do this. If they can't even act in their own financial long-term interests, they can't be acting in society or the environments best interests.